New Left Review I/159, September-October 1986

Lawrence Lifschultz

From the U-2 to the P-3: The US—Pakistan Relationship

Not long after the U—2 surveillance aircraft was shot down over Soviet territory in 1960, Nikita Khrushchev approached Pakistan’s ambassador at a diplomatic reception and told him that he had looked carefully at the map, taken out a pen and drawn a big red circle round Peshawar. In his characteristically blunt way Khrushchev was issuing a threat that no further U—2 flights violating Soviet airspace were to take off from Pakistani bases such as the Badaber facility outside the capital of Northwest Frontier Province. In his first public speech on the incident, the Soviet leader directed his remarks toward General Ayub Khan and his colleagues when he declared: ‘Don’t play with fire, gentlemen!’ [1]

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